My Mental Health and Lithium.
Whether your an occasional lurker of the EVlist archives or a frequent visitor of the Green Car Congress, you find out pretty quickly about the latest (public) movements in battery technology.
Without any doubt, lithium technology is forging ahead, things are moving really fast. Early last year A123 Systems signed a deal with the large battery manufacturing company China Bak Battery to make lithium battery packs primarily for DeWalt (Black and Decker) power tools. These Nano-Phophate Li-ion batteries have some very promising spec’s (mainly the number of recharge cycles) AND they’re cheaper to make AND mass production is making them even cheaper.
Then a few weeks ago there was a discussion over at GCC on the economics of these batteries and how they’re not far off a tipping point of affordability. Believe it or not the proposition was put that if a new 36V DeWalt battery pack reached the price of $40 on eBay then lithium would be unstoppable and could compete with fossil fuels as an economic energy storage medium! So what’s the current eBay price? Only about $130. I don’t know about you but I find this very exciting…
Last year I requested a quote from Kokam batteries for a lithium battery pack for the E-E. Their customer service was exceptional and their price tempted me then, yet it was twice this price per kWh AND they have a much less life AND much lower maximum charge and discharge rates.
So then a couple of weeks ago I started dreaming about these DeWalt packs and how to get inside them (and so was regular commenter Carl!) and look what Google turns up; somebody’s written an article about just that! This is an awesome website that goes into a lot of detail about these A123 batteries, these RC (radio control) geeks know their stuff and the only thing unproven to them is life expectancy.
So I take a sniff around the A123 Systems website again and low and behold they’re selling “Developer Kits” for their M1 batteries. Now at $20 per cell you’d be better off buying a DeWalt pack and wrecking it ($16/cell) but I’m sure they’d give a discount for 1500 cells! Wouldn’t they??
Yep, that’s right, one thousand five hundred batteries. Here’s the figuring;
- I need a 10kWh battery pack for a 30km range (that’s in a real car in the real world, people).
- Each cell is 2.2Ah by 3.3V which equals 7.5Wh.
- 10,000 divided by 7.5 = 1,300 cells.
- Add a few more because you can’t have too much Lithium = 1,500.
I would clump 33 of these batteries in parallel giving a massive maximum constant current draw of 2,300 Amps! I would then join 45 of these clumps end on end to get the required voltage (approx 144V). Technically this battery pack could deliver enough current to run four E-E motors at the same time AND be re-charged again in minutes!
Ok…so I’ve sent an email off to the folks at A123 Systems requesting a quotation and I’ve filled in one of their customer enquiry forms. I hope they’re as enthusiastic about loopy EV amateurs as the Kokam folks were…
March 13th, 2007 at 12:28 am
Hi,
Can you use their Hypersonic 4600 mAh 6.6 V @ $120 each or Hypersonic 2300 mAh 9.9V @$90 each?
HK
March 13th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Hi HK,
I haven’t seen these but the M1’s are $16 / 7.5Wh from a DeWalt pack therefore = $2.10 / Wh so;
4.6Ah x 6.6V = 30Wh @ $120 = $4.00 / Wh
and 2.3Ah x 6.6V = 15Wh @ $90 = $6.00 / Wh
I’m sticking with the M1’s, it’ll be interesting to see if;
a) A123 Systems respond to my enquiry and
b) their price per M1 cell is cheaper than those extracted from a DeWalt pack.
March 15th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Don’t do that to me again. I thought you had finally gone over the edge!!!
It all sounds very exciting even if I can understand very little of the technical stuff. Good!! I say. Love
March 15th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Don’t worry Mum. When I’m finally prescribed the Lithium you’ll be the first to know.
March 16th, 2007 at 9:09 am
I can vouch for Shaun that he’s not yet ‘certifiable’, but is definately certified!
:)
March 16th, 2007 at 10:39 am
OK - here’s a follow-up exercise (for curiousity) to an off-line discussion on using the M1’s to replicate Hymotions L5 Plug-in Prius battery kit. The kit is 5kWh and is claimed to enable 55km EV range up to 55kph (ICE kicks in over 55kph).
Shaun, you were saying the A123 M1 cell has (2.2Ah x 3.3V) 7.5Wh capacity so divide 5,000 by 7.5 you get M1 667 cells required to match the Hymotion kit.
So here’s a rough budget to mod a plug-in Prius with M1’s based on CalCars prototype Prius Plug-in budgets:
01. Charger: Soneil 3610SRF, 42V@5A, or similar –$140USD
02. A123 battery - M1 cell (2.2Ah x 3.3V) 7.5Wh: 6 x 100-cell modules 667 x $10 (negotiated developer kit price?) = $6,670AUD
03. Electronics – $3,200USD
04. “CDU + VTC Node” CAN-bus monitor/BMS + CAN-bus multi-channel input card - $500USD
05. Customization of CDU and VTC Node for the PRIUS – $2,000USD
06. CAN bus connection: CAN dongle + RS-232 to USB adapter –$200
07. Mini-scanner III $200USD
08. Miscellaneous –est. $1,000USD
- Hardware for battery box, electrical connections, etc
- Possible fabrications for battery box and other parts of installation
- Battery box fan with AC power supply and air ducts
- Sales tax, shipping costs, etc, on components listed above
- Other unknowns
09. Instrumentation: existing CAN dongle, PDA/PocketPC,
10. Energy Meter for House
What do y’all think?
March 16th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Holy crap! What is all that stuff? I think these prices reflect the cost of one-off prototyping.
If it were me I would beg, borrow or steal Hymotion’s electrickemy and add my own battery pack, it’d have to be cheaper than this $15k wouldn’t it?
March 17th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
UPDATE!
Hey Alex! The A123 Lithium Gods are smiling on you! Check this out;
http://hybrids-plus.com/ht/products.html
Be sure to read the FAQ’s, particularly 220V charging and conversion kits…
March 18th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Hi Shaun,
Have you checked this site
http://www.everspring.net/txt/product-battery.htm
I would if I can convert a car like yours.
March 19th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Hi Ben,
These are the infamous Thunder Sky Li-ion batteries. Not too many have had a positive experience with these batteries unfortunatley.
March 19th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Thanks Shaun
What a great find - this is pretty exciting stuff. If this PriusPlus mob actually do end up making a kit for Toyota mechanics to install, that would be amazing.
Still, the proposed kit is mega bucks at the moment. The Prius-15 kit allows up to 24KM pure EV mode (up to 55kph) and is currently priced at $30,000AUD, but hopefully will drop to $16,340AUD by mid 2007.
The Prius-30 Kit allows up to 48KM in EV mode and is currently $40,236AUD, hopefully dropping to $23,886AUD by mid 2007.
So my $15K estimate above was not far off afterall!?!?!?
So all I would need would be a 240v to 110V step down convertor and I’d be in business
Now that’s what I call plug and play
March 19th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Alex,
I found out about Hybrids-Plus from this site;
http://www.eaa-phev.org/wiki/Plug-In_Hybrids
There is some excellent PHEV info here, well worth the time it takes to trawl through.
By the way I’ve had initial contact with A123, USD$12.25 per M1 cell for an order of 1500 ! That’s AUD$24,000 !!
Last quote from Kokam was AUD$18,000. 12 months later they might be cheaper now, I might ask.
(At this price I’m also going to get a quote for 150 DeWalt Battery packs!)
March 20th, 2007 at 1:36 am
Hey have yuo checked out Nickel Zinc lately? I know it sounds like a step backwards from Lithium, however it sounds very promising from a price/performance perspective. Two companies have broken the ‘dendritic’ problem which limited their cycle life, and NiZn looks very good.
Here is a quote from a technical evaluation:
“eVionyx nickel-zinc battery has twice the energy density of lead-acid batteries and a power density around 875 W/kg, among the highest of available secondary batteries on the market. They can handle 500 cycles at 100% DOD which is a net improvement compared with other nickel-zinc batteries.”
From all reports, NiZn is only be about 50% more expensive than LeadAcid batteries (per Kg.. I invite folks to correct me here) but even if they were at a slight premium, it would still be worth it. There are many electric cars that only have a 80km range, but with these batteries they would have a 160+ range (because you can draw these NiZn batteries much deeper than LeadAcid).
Here’s a canadian paper:
http://mec.ceveq.qc.ca/assets/files/Preliminary_Technical_Analysis_Final.pdf
March 20th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
Hi Timothy,
I’ll do some research and comment later, thanks.
March 21st, 2007 at 10:34 am
Hi Shaun
Yeah I saw that wiki site and have bookmarked to monitor. Nice to see about 4 or 5 groups now developing plug-in kits for the Prius - tho only a couple seem interested in developing a kit they hand over for the customer and their own installer.
Interesting to see the EDrive mob also using M1 like nanotech li-ion batteries by Valence, the competition to A123. Wonder why the recent big US Govt fleet contract to plug-in a bunch of their Prii - went with Hymotion over D-Drive, cos Hymotion are still using regular li-ion???
Sooooo….$12.25 ea for the M1’s - that’s $8,170AUD for my 667 cell pack. If there was a way to cover the rest of the necessary conversion electronics, so the total bill is around $10-12K, then it still would be worth considering.
Or….as Timothy suggests, perhaps it’s time to re-look at new Nickel Zinc or other ‘older’ tech. Interesting tho that the main Toyota honcho came out on businessweek the other day and confirm the next Prius model in 2008/09 will have li-ion cells - so that’s seems to be where everyone is trying to get to - the happy land of lithium
March 21st, 2007 at 7:36 pm
This conversation reminds me of my first hard drive in 1988. It was about 300mm x 300mm x 100mm, cost $1,000 and stored… wait for it… 20 whole megabytes! The cable was wide SCSI and strong enough to tie down Jonah Lomu. I was sure I’d never fill it up.
The same storage volume today costs less than 2 cents.
I’m not saying that chemistry is as easy as data storage, merely that where there’s demand, there’s invention. I can’t wait to see the looks on recalcitrant players in this market when they suddenly find they have a mainframe they can’t give away (ICE), cause the dealer down the road is selling PCs (EVs).
March 21st, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Sounds like you were a Mac man like me Carl!?
In 1986 I had $8,500 worth of Apple gear, oh to be young and rich again, it wouldn’t be worth $5.00 now…
I suspect GM is one of those “recalcitrant players”, unfortunately they’re also the worlds largest automotive manufacturer, so things are going to be slow.
March 23rd, 2007 at 11:25 am
Guys
This will no doubt give my ignorance away of the practical physics of these things, but given the recent penchant amongst EV battery developers for greater numbers of smaller batteries - is there ANY case for utilising thousands of off-the shelf garden variety rechargable NiMH batteries available in every supermarket?
You’d have to by in bulk directly from a wholesaler, cos RRP for 2 AA is around $11, and you could pick up an M1 for around that which would obviously be greatly superior.
Still, if this is possible/practical, these garden variety NiMH batteries have the advantage of being tried and tested, are commonly available, and are at comparitively low prices - you’d just need a bazillion of them.
I’m sure other knowledgable EV guru’s have thought of this & ditched the idea for very good reasons.
March 23rd, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Hi Shaun,
Another option for you to think to relax, NiMH 12V 100AH from a shop in Perth, don’t know how expensive they are.
http://www.batterybook.com/products.html
March 25th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Alex, your right. Trying to use lots and lots of inferior batteries ain’t worth the trouble.
Ben, I know there are some EVers who use NiMH but I figure they’re very expensive and a whole host of other reasons why the current hybrids will be using Li-ion in the next year or two. (Thanks for being concerned about my mental health though.)
April 9th, 2007 at 5:20 am
What’s the volume pricing like? Buy ~50,000 or whatever and sell the excess off on eBay? That should jump start things?
http://www.maxamps.com/products.php?cat=62
April 9th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Hi Smith,
As I posted earlier; for 1,500 the price is USD$12.25 per cell, that’s AUD$24,000 therefore 50,000 = AUD$800,000, maybe AUD$600,000 with discount, I ain’t got those kinda beans! Also from what I’ve read you have to agree not to on-sell the batteries when you get a bulk order discount anyhow.
But if your volunteering, count me in!
April 25th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Has anyone found the specs or reversed engineered the BMS on the Dewalt batteries? For the uses here, you wouldn’t want to waste the space from ~100 packs, but for applications needing maybe
April 25th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Oops, that got cut off… for applications needing maybe less than 10 packs just plugging them in as is might be great.
April 27th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Hi jrg,
I reckon that would be pretty cool just plugging in the packs as is, I’m not sure if part of the BMS is in the Dewalt charger as well, the other down would be the extra weight.
I haven’t got a quote for 150 Dewalt packs yet…maybe because I don’t want the bad news…
September 20th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Hi, I have been thinking of doing an electric conversion myself and came across this blog a while back and I remembered the conversation about finding a suitable lithium option. Well I came across a company today that maybe the answer. www.lionev.com They have a lithium pack for sale in a few different configurations, They sell FULLY ELECTRIC vehicles such as the Hyundai Accent and Tucson and Ford Pickup which has a 200 mile range with load!
this is a copy of the description of one of there packs.
“Our least expensive LiFePO4 pack is the Silver pack. It requires 582 cubic inches per KWh, and weighs in at 25 pounds per KWh. These packs are solid bricks available in 35VDC (nominal) at 209Ah. These packs can produce up to 2,280 Amps on demand, 500 Amps at 25% duty cycle, and 250 Amps continuous. This is the only battery marketed with a 2000+ cycle charge life at 100% DOD. At only $373.00 per KWh it is the lowest priced lithium battery pack on the market. 1 year warranty on the battery packs, extended to 3 years if purchased with PCM/BMS package.”
They also have a charger for the packs athat can be used for lead-acid OR lithium for $725
anyways just wanted to share this with anyone who might still read this.
Very Cool Stuff!
-Tyson
September 20th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Hi Tyson,
I’ve seen this company discussed on the EV discussion list but hadn’t, until now, taken a closer look. Looks pretty good.
They offer a 3-7 year warranty if you order a pack with PCM/BMS which would cost me (for the size I require) between USD$18,000 and USD$38,000. This is actually a good price for a 38kWh battery pack.
My concern is with “generic” LiFePO4 manufacturers. We are so early in the production stage of this chemistry that NOBODY knows how long these batteries will last in a real world EV. That is why I am setting up an accelerated cycle testing of some A123 batteries. Then I will compare with the “generic” brands…
September 21st, 2007 at 2:04 am
I think for the most part by the time I am ready for the pack they will be lower in price and better tested. I think I am more satisfied that a company is actually selling the lithium pack specifically for the use for New EV’s and Designed to upgrade your current lead acid ev and will sell to the general public.
I think its a great place to start the competition in pricing. so I think over the next year or 2 we will see this price drop if similar companies follow suit.
September 21st, 2007 at 6:31 am
Yes, that is a very good point and something to be positive about; at least somebody is making and selling them! A constant discharge current of 250Amps is very low though.
May 23rd, 2008 at 12:52 pm
sorry if i’m doing this wrong but i wanted to ask if anybody has heard of that stuff sold in supercheap type shops for leadacid batteries,”Inox”i think? There’s only one anyhow, the company makes great claimes of it, and the shop staff usually do to. They claim to extend the warranty of any new battery treated with it. Also i have a old book “1981″ that on page142 has a recipe for restoring “sulphated accumulators”. it gives a proceedure involveing the use of a chemical “sodium sulphate”. If it workes, could this be a sort of “battery maintainance” proceedure, if done before the end of the natural life, to extend it? On A.B.C.2 digital {SCRAP HEAP CHALANGE}a couple of nights ago, they had an electric car challange. the interesting part was that they told of “milk floats”, ?electric trucks that dilevered, or maybe still deliver milk in england. they work at 72 vts. Does anyone know who makes them? Are they any use to us? thank you. ISE MISE michael
May 31st, 2008 at 7:47 pm
in adittion to the english milk trucks/floats some airport vehicles may be electric. anybody heard of a company , or any info that might be usefull?
June 5th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
i don’t mean to be impatient, but you just live up ythe road. {UpperCoomera just past Bienleigh}there must be a better way to ask you a question than this. Can i ring you or vise verser? Would love to see your creation in the flesh/{metal maybe} to. ISE MISE michael
June 5th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Hi Michael,
You have every right to be impatient, sorry about the slow response but I haven’t been monitoring this blog much lately. My email address is in the Who page of the main www.electric-echo.com website it’s a bit cryptic because I’m sick of being bombarded by tons of Spam everyday.
In answer to your questions above:
Additives to lead-acid batteries have been around a long time but the general consensus amongst EV enthusiasts who’ve had a lot more experience than I is that they are a waste of money.
Google “Canadian Electric Vehicles” and you’ll find Randy’s website all about the commercial electric vehicles he builds.
Drop me an email and we’ll work out a time for an E-E show-and-tell.
July 4th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
just posted, or tried to post, my second email to you. the 1st. one was quite some time ago. i gather there will be a lot of williams’s [williamsi] in the brisbane phone book. If you didn’t get the email sent today, could you leave hints on this site as to weather i should start at the begining of the williams, the middle , or the end perhaps, in trying to contact you by phone? ise mise michael
June 18th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
in third world countries, mental health is never a priority.-*-